![]() We live amidst breathtaking natural splendor but also in the presence of lightning strikes, fires, avalanches, rockfalls, precipices, extreme weather, bear attacks, and other violent conditions or situations that almost always involve the uncertainty of the human factor. Such events are common for protected area practitioners and their staffs. The cumulative fatigue was catching up with the small staff-I could see it in their eyes. We had already experienced four fatalities, a bear mauling, and two medivacs. The week was unusually busy with emergencies. It reminded me that the innocence of managing a protected area was lost a long time ago. No one had died, just yet, but this call, like all the calls, was sobering. State troopers asked him to assist on a 911 in which a citizen forewarned him to come with a body bag. I received a call from my chief ranger last night. Elegant conservation presents an opportunity to help people find common ground and move protected area management beyond its origins in settler colonialism at a time of national and planetary crisis. Our model of elegant conservation offers a pragmatic, holistic, inclusive alternative to top-down, reductive management approaches and is an outgrowth of modern American intellectual history, especially since the end of the Cold War, ca. We then propose a heuristic of five human tendencies-elements of human consciousness-that can help protected area managers and their partners organize constructive responses to any conservation issue. We first offer a heuristic of seven conditions that protected area managers can analyze when sizing up conservation issues and the people involved. Our approach connects the humanities, Western sciences, and other forms of knowledge, including Indigenous knowledge, in a manner that more sustainably builds social support for conservation. Reimagining how protected area managers approach conservation requires them to observe closely and holistically, with fresh eyes, human consciousness and behavior as well as relationships between people and between people and nature. This alignment, which we call elegant conservation, asks protected area managers to reimagine how conservation can be inclusive of cultures and subcultures whose members value protected areas, but not in the same way. "It's just a perfect metaphor and a perfect physical reality as well.We present an approach to the conservation of protected areas that aligns cultural truths with scientific truths to increase community capacity for conservation. "Nature's already starting to reclaim and rebuild," Gayner said. Two-inch shoots of new grass are growing through blackened plots of earth. "They just want to get back up on the land and get to work and be in their homes." (credit: Shambhala Mountain Center) (credit: Shambhala Mountain Center)īut among the staff and residents, spirit is not in short supply. The fire doubles the amount of work and money required to re-establish operations, Gayner said. The Shambhala Mountain Center closed earlier this year due to concerns of the Covid-19 outbreak. You can see how hard they worked to save our land." (credit: Shambhala Mountain Center) The charred grasses often come very, very close to the edge of the buildings. "Around the buildings," Gayner said, "you could see the footprints of the battle, so to speak. 26th when mandatory evacuations were announced. (credit: Shambhala Mountain Center)Ĭonstruction of the Stupa began in 1988 and continued until Sept. Yards away, the remains of other buildings lie crumpled and defeated by flames. Considered by the group one of the best examples of Bhuddist architecture in the nation, the 108-foot temple still stands at the edge of a meadow. Unquestionably, the biggest victory was the survival of the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya. "We're not out of the woods yet, so to speak, but it's a much more secure situation." (credit: Shambhala Mountain Center) There's a couple little places where there is still smoke, so they've got some work to do," he added. There were about a dozen firefighters still doing work. ![]() "It was a quick visit because the fire danger is still there. ![]() "It's much better than we were afraid it would be," he said. Many of the "old legacy" staff cabins, established by the founding members of the Bhuddist group, were lost, Executive Director Michael Gayner stated in an online message. (CBS4) - Evacuated residents of the Shambhala Mountain Center huddled with friends out of harm's way as the Cameron Peak Fire grew into the state's third-largest wildfire the last week of September.įriday, a small band of them were permitted to view the damage the fire left behind.
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